1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to refrigerated appliances for cooling foodstuffs or the like, and it relates more particularly to a novel appliance having the ability to serve as a salad bar without requiring the use of ice for maintaining salad foodstuffs in a chilled state during serving.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional salad bar of the type found in restaurants and cafeterias, in one form, includes a cabinet having a counter top provided with a central opening. The opening is fitted with one or more relatively shallow pans which are suitable for holding a quantity of crushed ice. Food containers of various sizes may be placed in the ice such that the contents of the containers are maintained at a relatively low temperature, thereby preserving the contents of the containers against premature spoilage.
While salad bars of the foregoing description have long been in widespread use, they are not without a number of disadvantages. First, the use of ice in quantities sufficient to fill this type of salad bar is inconvenient for the proprietor of the food service operation. Often the ice must be supplied from off the premises and must be loaded into the salad bar manually at intervals frequent enough to ensure that the food containers are adequately chilled. In addition, as the ice melts, water within the salad bar pan must be manually drained and transported usually to a remote location or directed to an open floor drain for disposal. Thus, the maintenance of an ice-type salad bar is a time consuming task.
Since an ice-type salad bar must be designed to display numerous food containers filled with vegetables, condiments and the like, the supporting cabinet unit is often large in size and occupies considerable floor space. While the cabinet may be designed for storage purposes, such storage space cannot be used for any food items requiring refrigeration because the ice is capable only of chilling items placed in relatively close heat transferring relationship to it. Accordingly, the available storage space of the ice-type salad bar unit cannot be used to store additional quantities of most of the foodstuffs usually displayed on the top of the salad bar.
In another form, a salad bar is known which has a refrigeration unit and a cooling coil positioned against a plate located beneath the vegetable filled containers. However, the coil is capable of freezing and damaging the contents of the containers because of difficulties in maintaining a suitably controlled heat transfer relationship between the containers and the refrigerated plate. In addition, while some of these salad bars have storage compartments disposed beneath the refrigeration coil, cool air circulation within the compartment is not provided for and, therefore, foodstuffs stored within the compartment are not chilled with uniform reliability.